1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to data communication circuits, including serial interface circuits.
2. Description of the Background Art
High speed serial interfaces (HSSI) may be configured to transmit data on multiple channels. Unfortunately, substantial skew may accumulate along the path from the transmission to reception of the multiple-channel data. The path may be a few inches long if chip-to-chip or many miles long if box-to-box.
HSSI protocols typically limit skew to a few unit intervals (UI) or less between transmission pins on an integrated circuit. Otherwise, excessive skew results in the need for deep deskew buffers at the receiver, which is expensive and increases network latency.